TFC #04 - 3 Tips To Not Hate Cabinet Vision Quite As Much

Thinking of chucking your Cabinet Vision out the door because of all the frustrations it causes?

I get it. Most people have a love/hate relationship with Cabinet Vision.

It is still my personal favorite for cabinet manufacturing and I believe it is still the best option for shops who need to have a robust solution to handle their custom boxes and build exactly what they want to build.

(above statement is rich with my opinion)

Let me give you 3 tips to help ensure you are maximizing its benefits.

#1 - Make it Yours

The first thing I do when I help someone with their Cabinet Vision, is go through and delete all the unnecessary stuff.

Maybe I go overboard with this, but I am a big believer in starting from scratch and only adding things you want to have in your software.

This means, deleting all the stock things that come stock with CV such as:

• doors

• profiles

• materials (I keep the drawer guides, but pretty much everything else I get rid of)

• material schedules

Most people are worried they will mess something up if they delete it. The thing to remember is, you can always add it back. These things are easy to recreate if you need them.

Disclaimer.... I do still advise making a backup before you go for a big cleanup run. Just in case.

#2 - Invest Time Weekly On Making it Better

The truth is, Cabinet Vision is not that powerful with the basic options.

In other words, if you're not investing time in making processes more efficient and automating your workflows on a regular basis, you might as well have Mozaik.

These weekly improvements could consist of any of the following things:

• writing a UCS to speed up the design of a certain item

• saving more custom objects in your library

• create parametric objects that can be resized and reused for different applications

• Creating construction methods for new design ideas

#3 - Keep materials and prices up to date

It is easy to be lazy and just use generic materials in your material schedules, but you're hurting yourself.

It is a lot of work to keep the types, sizes, and prices of materials up to date but this gives you lots of benefits.

Here a few reasons why I think it is important:

Accurate materials for every type of material saves headaches in design and production

Yes, this means creating a separate material for 1/2 1 sided Cherry, 1/2 2 sided Cherry, 1/2 MDF core Cherry, etc etc.....

If your material thickness is incorrect, your CNC dado depths can potentially be incorrect.

Yes, you need to regularly check if your 3/4 plywood is .71 or .75 inches thick.

Keep your prices up to date on your materials. Cabinet Vision is a great tool for keeping an eye on your COGS (cost of goods sold) on a job by job basis.

You can also use material prices as part of your pricing strategy if you are pricing through bid center

Conclusion

Cabinet Vision is an incredible software.... in the right hands.

Software is a big part of how smoothly your shop operates today, and Cabinet Vision is definitely a good tool to have in your company.

You just need to invest time into making it work for you.

Thanks for reading and hope you have a great rest of your Friday.